Shrimp and rice noodle salad

Maybe it's all the Asian food Molly's been posting about lately, but I found myself making Thai red curry and a shrimp and rice noodle salad for dinners this past week.  The curry was better than I've ever made before, but still not quite good enough to post about.  But, the shrimp and rice noodle salad I made last night was great.  I think it would be especially perfect on a hot summer day - which yesterday decidedly wasn't, but my spring fever carried the day!

It's pretty simple, and I think will lend itself to a lot of variation.  The real key is the sauce.  I used cashew butter, since that's what the recipe I found called for, but I think it would probably be just as good with peanut butter (you might need to adjust the ratios a bit, since peanut is a stronger flavor than cashew).

For dressing/sauce:
Puree in a blender:
1/2 c cashew butter
1/4 c water
3 T rice vinegar
3 T toasted sesame oil (or olive oil if that's what you have)
2 T soy sauce
2 T fish sauce (or another 2 T soy sauce)
2 T sugar
~2T Thai roasted red chili paste
6-8 cloves or garlic
1/2 - 1 inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped
hot sauce or Thai red chili paste to taste, if you want it spicier

For our salad, I used:
 ~1/2 pound of rice noodles according to the package directions, putting them in cold water as soon as they were done cooking.
1 lb shrimp - boiled in the noodle water after the noodles were done, then put in cold water immediately
1 head of Boston Bibb lettuce, shredded/sliced into strips
4 smallish carrots, cut into matchsticks
4 scallions, sliced thinly
~1/2 c cilantro, chopped
~1/3 c chopped cashews
Some thinly sliced red pepper or cucumber would also be really good, I think.

I served it all in one big bowl, with a mound of noddles in the center, surrounded by the lettuce, and everything else just sprinkled on top.  I served the sauce on the side, so everyone could add however much they liked.

I was quite pleased with myself :), Aleks said this one should go on "our list" (he then asked if we actually have a list, to which I had to reply "not really, only in my head"), Will ate all of his, and Suzie ate a decent amount too.

Hope you enjoy it!
-Maggie